Why you shouldn’t walk (or run) a mile in someone else’s shoes

The old saying “try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” is a great concept and a wonderful metaphor, however, it’s not one to be taken on a literal level! I’ve often toyed with buying ‘as good as new’ or ‘only worn a few times’ with running shoes on eBay but always been advised that it’s a bad idea as it’s molded to someone’s feet etc... Recently I was away at my mum and dads where I leave a pair of oldish running shoes so I don’t have to take any when I visit. My brother does the same. I looked at the state of mine and they weren’t brilliant. Then I saw my brothers. Only half a size bigger. A few hundred miles in them and I thought ‘why not’? Can it really be that bad? I’m only doing 4 miles. Here’s what happened!

1. My heels hurt. A lot. The first run seemed fine. The shoes were lighter than I’m used to and coming down some of the hills I felt fast and free. However, the next day my right heel started hurting badly after a mile and I was struggling to put much pressure on either heel for the next couple of days.
2. My legs were mashed. And I mean mashed. I used them on a Sunday and a Monday. I went for a run with my wife on the Thursday and I’ve never been in as much discomfort with something that wasn’t an injury. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of my thighs. I love my wife to bits but she’s a couple of mins per mile slower than me on a parkrun but when she kicked for home I was struggling to keep up.
3. My back was sore. Granted I usually have fairly high levels of support in my shoes due to majorly over pronating but using shoes that had been molded to someone else’s feet played havoc with my back. I spent 2 or 3 days not being able to sit comfortably.

So I’ve learnt my lesson the hard way (albeit without any long-term damage I hope!) So next time someone is selling some ‘barely used’ running shoes at a discount price, be very very careful!

What counts as a PB?

I've seen a lot of people saying "my race time was this but my watch says this" in terms of a PB in a race. Some people say a PB is how fast your GPS has ever recorded that distance, some say it's what the official race time says. I'll be honest this is a subject that I have massively changed my opinion on in the last year or so. I recently ran a 10K PB at Silverstone. Watch said 10K was in 48 mins, official time from race was 48:35. I was all for the theory that your PB is what your watch says your PB is. However, I no longer subscribe to that way of thinking and here's why:

1. Courses are measured. Sounds simple but courses are measured accurately and watches have a slight deviation. It is frustrating when you run further than the distance of the race but I've also had some where my watch says it's just short so it goes both ways. A course should be officially measured and based on that, your PB should be taken as your official race time.
   
2. 
   Watches/phones can be wrong. Shock horror! But yes they can be wrong as you can see below. My mile record is world record level. So I can believe my watch or I can use common sense! A course doesn't deviate, have mini drop outs or get your starting position slightly wrong.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. It's what Mo would say! I'd imagine anyway. I can't think if you asked Mo Farah what his 10K PB would be he would say "well I did X time in training once". It would be his racing PB.
   
4. It's a level playing field. Chip timing or officially timed races are the only accurate way to measure one athlete against another. Even within watches there's variation. I do lots of long runs with my brother who has a different Garmin to me and despite running side by side my watch always seems to be slightly behind distance wise. Chip timing and officially timed races take away all those variables.

It's frustrating as most of my "records" in races are quicker on my watch than my official race time but all things considered, the only open and fully honest way in my opinion to say what your PB is is to go by what your official race time is.

How to return from injury

I'll be honest, in my 6 years of running I've been fortunate enough to only have 3 injuries that have kept me out for any length of time. I'm the runner who permanently whinges that something hurts!!! My last 2 injuries have been my left IT Band and my right ankle. I approached rehab in very different ways and made many mistakes the first time around which I rectified the second time around. Getting rehab wrong the first time led to a 6 month recovery and me pulling out of my first ever scheduled marathon. The second rehab took me from crutches to marathon in less than 5 months. As always, I'm no expert and this is just my opinion - however, if you read what the "experts" say they tend to contradict each other anyway! So here's my tips:

1. Whenever you think you're ready to return, you're not! I don't know if you're like me but if anything happens to my body my instant thought is not "am I okay" but "how long will this put me out of running for." I'm massively impatient when it comes to recovery and always want to start back sooner than I probably should. You need to resist the temptation to come back too soon. There's always another race and as hard as it is to do and easy as it is to say you need to take a long-term view.
   
2. Don't Google it! Every niggle is usually followed by a google search which invariably leads to advice telling you that you've probably ruptured something and you need to sit out for 2 years or someone saying they had the same thing and ran 100km the following day! Every injury is different. With my IT Band I just looked at what others said and needed up with 3 failed returns to running. With my ankle, I saw my osteopath who I see for some back issues anyway and she was able to fully assess the injury and the damage, give me a rehab plan and tell me when I could look at returning, how much to do and when to stop again. I spent 7 weeks not running which was almost impossible and ended with a zero mileage month which severely dented my runners pride! However, by getting someone unattached to my goals and mindset to say what the right thing to do was really paid off. Just over 5 months after badly spraining ligaments I completed Beachy Head Marathon which is a beast of a course however fit you are.
   
3. You'll be slow and frustrate yourself! And that's okay. When I did my first run after my ankle it was 10 minutes and about 10 minute a mile pace and I struggled. Just over 2 months prior I had run a marathon. Rarely will you come back to where you were straight away but it will come back if you don't rush it. Most of my rehab running which was a 6 week programme was slow and hard work and nowhere near what I'm capable of but always keep the goal in mind. The goal of rehab is rehab! Once you're the other side of it you can push yourself again but don't push it too soon trying to instantly get back to where you were.

Injuries. We all hate them. But by doing the right things you can return and ultimately return stronger.

Heart Rate Monitors - Why I No Longer Use One

A lot of devices come with an inbuilt HRM these days but back in 2016 it wasn’t as frequent. I bought my brother’s Garmin Forerunner 235 and with it the chest strap. Over the next few months I ran my best ever half marathon and my worst ever marathon. I no longer use one but there were some good points it. I honestly can’t tell you if it’s good - as I said my best half and worst full came using it but below is what I liked and what I loathed:

Pros:

• It’s not subjective. Often we run by how we feel but with a HRM you don’t get the choice. It independently measures your effort and so when you can’t be bothered it kicks you up the backside and when you are flying it reigns you in.
• It helps you run at a rhythm. After a while you get used to running at the same effort and that certainly helped me in my half when I ran without it. My splits were all within 10 seconds of each other which I think is because the HRM got me used to running at a consistent effort.

Cons:

• It tells you the truth. Turns out I’m not as fit as I’d like to believe!!! It took over a minute a mile off my training pace and often left me frustrated that I was constantly slowing down.
• It turned me into a madman. It was slowing me down so much I felt like I was shouting at it all the time. Fellow runners must have wondered “why is that guy having an argument with his wrist”?
• It was uncomfortable. Most these day are wrist based but I would spend the first mile of most runs adjusting the strap to try and get it to stick in place. Probably looked to people around like I was adjusting a bra strap!
• It made me not enjoy running. When the battery went I was relieved. I’d spent 8 months running with it and hadn’t enjoyed it. Yes it had been successful for the half but I run primarily to enjoy it so if anything takes that away it’s not worth persisting with.

So, in conclusion, they work and they don’t work! For me, it wasn’t the way forwards. How have you found training to heart rate?

Why you should ignore most marathon plans

I'm now a "veteran" of 5 marathons and 1  ultra marathon. They have all been bog standard times (PB is 4:35) and I've trained for all of them slightly differently. It's really confusing when you first start out as there's a million different plans which will help you run your perfect marathon. Except they can't all be right because most of them contradict each other! There's assumptions made about your fitness, lifestyle and your body that can't be correct across the board. So, what is the answer? Honestly, I still don't feel like I've found the "perfect" plan for me but I'm closer than I've been before so here's my tips to help you figure out what sort of plan might help you:

1. Know your own body. I do a lot of my long runs with my brother. He's faster than me but not by so much that we can't enjoy a long run together. He runs 5 miles every single day, a long run on a Saturday and rests only 1 day a week. He's been doing that for years and it's got him a sub 4 hour marathon. My body doesn't take more than 2 days consecutive running particularly well so I put a rest day in on every 3rd day. That's my issue with these online plans. What works for my brother would not work for me and vice versa yet we've run 4 marathons and an ultra together.
2. Know your schedule. Some of the plans I see online are for those who have 10 hours free per day! My lifestyle doesn't work with that. I've got to get up at 5.30 as it is to fit my runs in and due to evening commitments, kids and actually siting down at some point in the day, I've got a limit on how much time I actually have. I can fit 5-6 miles in on a morning but if I get up earlier I won't have had enough rest so these plans telling me I should be doing 8 miles twice a week on top of my long run simply don't work with my schedule and I can't move things to make it work. So I do what will work for me and stretch me as much as I can without killing myself.
3. Write it out. Writing out how far you're going to run each day ahead of time keeps you on track, accountable and motivated.
4. Experiment. Four of my last 5 marathons have been within a 7 minute difference of each other. I've tried different things for each one and I'm still learning what's best for me to try and get the right formula. There's lots of options so don't be afraid to try a few things out.
5. It WILL hurt. Regardless of what plan you follow or devise, a marathon will hurt. A lot. You forget how much that part between 18-22 miles (for me anyway) is a physical and mental battle and no training plan will make that disappear.

Having said all that, I found www.marathonrookie.com a really good place to start!

Regents Park 10K - How I ran my "worst" 10K and still had fun

Today I took on the Regents Park 10K. It was a no pressure race as this years goal was always a PB at Silverstone which was achieved. This was purely a "I'm in London so why not" sign up. With that in mind I had no real strategy other than go off too quickly and see if I can last. In short, I couldn't. After lap one I was well on course for a PB but the heat had knocked every ounce of energy out of me and I knew I couldn't sustain it. At that point, I made a decision to not try for the PB but to slow down, take the odd walk break and enjoy the scenery and a sprint finish. It was really hard going in the sun and I'm not great in the heat anyway. I used to not care if I completed a 10K unless it was a PB but you have to respect the distance and the conditions. No shame in accepting early on it won't be your day and enjoying the run rather than killing yourself getting a time you're not happy with anyway so a time which is over 5 minutes slower than Silverstone had to do - 53:53. Considering that got me 280th place out of 760 I think I wasn't the only one that wilted in the heat!

While I'm here I might as well give a quick review of the actual race...

Positives:

1. Really scenic route
2. The guy doing a warm up with everyone who was also the race announcer was an absolute legend!
3. Great PB potential (on a cooler day)
4. Marshaling was superb and course easy to follow
5. Good bling and nice selection of goodies at the end

Negatives:

1. Only one working toilet cubical. Had to hope there would be no "bear in the woods" incident!
2. Probably the least 'friendly' race I've run in. Usually there's someone you end up running with who helps get you through when you're struggling or likewise someone you can drag along. Everyone had headphones in and there was very little support around the track so no one encouraging you in the tough moments.

“Definitive” guide to running your best 10K

Welcome to one of a thousand or more blogs telling you how to run your best 10K. I’ll be honest, there’s so much contradictory advice from”experts” that some of them must be wrong. My conclusion is that all are wrong! We all have different bodies, schedules and different things work for different people. If you read my last blog you will have seen how I ran the imperfect race to a miserable 10K. However, I had one more chance...Silverstone 10K.

I was determined not to let that race become a failure but to become a launchpad for a new PB. I wrote out my training plan and went for it. If only it was as simple as that. My training plan was one I downloaded and it made me miserable! It all came to a head for me at a parkrun at Great Linford. Determined to run a PB I flagged badly and ran my worst 5k of the year. Something had to change so with the help of a wise and experienced friend I decided that I’d do 10 miles every Saturday to build some stamina into my legs and then vary some speed work in the week between pyramids, fartleks and tempo runs.

I wasn’t in 100% top condition due to a slight adductor strain from a race a few days before (more about that another time!) but I was taped up and ready to go. This time I stuck to my plan and ran 6 individual splits which had 5 seconds between fastest and slowest and then a sprint for the end. I finished in a bog standard time of 48:35 which was nearly 30 seconds quicker than my PB. Bog standard in general terms but you’re only ever out to beat yourself (and the person directly in front of you!) so I was chuffed. Do I believe I can go quicker? Absolutely. But the difference between Silverstone 10K and Festival of Running 10K was simple. I stuck to MY plan. Reading 10K guides are great and take lots of tips but find out what works for you and what motivates you.

For me:

1. 10 miles every Saturday to build stamina into your legs
2. 1x speed workout per week varying between pyramids, fartleks and temp runs